This invention relates to the dispensing of plastic bags, and is more particularly concerned with a dispenser from which the bags can be conveniently and efficiently withdrawn one at a time.
Plastic bags are commonly supplied for consumer use in packets or bundles from which the separate bags can be separated and used as desired. For example, the bags may be tied in bundles of fifty or one hundred bags, and since such plastic bags are quite slippery, they will spread apart upon being untied or unbanded and are inconvenient to handle.
An example of banding of bundles of bags is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,319 dated Jan. 7, 1986, and assigned to the same Assignee as the instant application. In this patent, there is disclosure of forming the bags in a manner to be joined top end to top end with a perforation along the joint between the bags so that the bags can be pulled apart along the perforation.
In the foresaid patent, the bags are made from material that has separable closure or zipper profile strips extending originally longitudinally along the bag making film material so that when the material is subdivided into end-joined bag sections the zippers are adjacent to the joined top ends of the bags.
By the present invention, it is proposed to package the bags for convenient dispensing in an improved manner compared to prior disclosures such as found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,376 dated Nov. 22, 1983, relating merely to packaging of a chain bag arrangement, and Boeckmann application Ser. No. 762,762, filed May 5, 1985, and relating to a bag dispensing arrangement for chain bags. In both of these disclosures the chain bags are connected together at their sides by links aligned with the extruded reclosable fasteners carried by the bags. In order to separate the lead bag from the chain, in Ser. No. 762,762, it is necessary to restrain the trailing bag digitally while the lead bag is pulled free by breaking the chain link connection. It may be noted that application Ser. No. 762,762 is owned by Signode Corporation, which is owned by the same holding company as the Assignee of the present application.